Some more champagne.
She poured more of the golden, bubbling liquid into her glass, and sipped at it as she watched the revelers. The Italian soprano had finished her song, and dancing had commenced among the masqueraders. Georgina giggled as she watched a knight in full armor, obviously quite foxed, wobble and fall over amid great clanking. Not even his lady fair, with the help of an Egyptian prince and Henry VIII, could rouse him. The dancing went on around him.
Then she saw her friend, Lady Lonsdale, clothed as Aphrodite in flowing white gauze draperies, in a box across the way.
She seized on the escape.
“There is Harriet Lonsdale!” Georgina said. “I do believe I will go and say hello to her.”
“Shall I escort you?” Freddie offered, though he looked quite reluctant to leave the side of the younger Fitzgerald lady.
“Oh, no. Her box is just across the way, see? I shall be safe just walking over there. You all must stay here, and enjoy the last of the strawberries.”
“Send Harriet my greetings,” answered Elizabeth, then she went back to whispering with her husband.
Georgina gathered up her shepherdess’s crook and the fluffy blue and white skirts of her costume, and slipped from the box. She skirted the dancers, who were swirling and skipping most vigorously, and dodged a strawberry seller and another shepherdess, who was leading a real sheep on a silk rope.
Unfortunately, the sheep had just done its business, and Georgina was forced to lift her skirts even higher to step over a rather nasty pile.
In order to reach the Lonsdales’ box, she had to pass several entrances to quiet, more private walkways. As she walked by one, she heard a voice call her name.
“Georgina.”
She paused, wondering if this was something like Emily’s Queen Elizabeth again. She had had rather a bit too much champagne.
Then she heard it again, louder. “Georgina.”
She peered down the walkway. It was very dimly lit, with only a few Chinese lanterns, but she could just make out a shadowy figure standing beneath a tree.
There was something about the figure’s height, the set of his shoulders . . .
Could it be? Had her thoughts of him somehow conjured him tonight?
“Alex?” she called tentatively, stepping out of the light and into the walkway.
“Of course it is Alex. Or else were you expecting someone else to be waiting for you on a dark path?”
Georgina laughed in relief and exhilaration. Alex was here, at last! “Certainly not, silly man! But I have not heard from you in so long, I feared my ears were deceiving me.”
He stepped into a small patch of light then.
Georgina, who had been poised to run to him and throw her arms about him, was stayed by the rather forbidding look on his face. He was all sharp planes and angles in the light and shadow, unsmiling and severe.
Georgina felt rather uncomfortably like a disobedient subaltern, about to be given a severe dressing down.
She advanced more slowly down the path, her grip tight on her crook.
“How did you know we were here at Vauxhall?” she asked.
“I called at Lady Elizabeth’s house. Her butler told me you were here.”
Georgina glanced at his attire. He wore black and white evening dress, not dusty travel buckskins. “You only arrived in Town today?”
“Yes. I stopped at Fair Oak, only to find that you had departed. Is Lady Elizabeth well?”
“Oh, yes. And your mother and sister?”
“Quite well also, thank you.”
Georgina moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. His stiff formality was quite chilling, after their delightful intimacy at Fair Oak. And puzzling, as well. She could think of nothing she might have done to cause such coldness.
She only knew she could not stand the little politenesses for another moment. She stepped a bit closer to him, close enough to smell the faint spicy scent of his soap.
“Alex,” she asked boldly, “are you angry about something?”
Alex looked down at her steadily. Rather coldly, she thought.
“There was a great deal of activity going on at Fair Oak. It was quite lively, really.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. My sister had hired new maids to clean the house from attics to scullery, gardeners, and men to repair the roof.”
In Georgina’s opinion, those refurbishments had been much needed, and not at all something to be angry about. “Did she indeed?”
“She told me that you had furnished the funds for those improvements,” he said tightly.
If he had suddenly reached out and struck her, Georgina could not have been more shocked. “It is the money you are angry about? The money I gave Emily?”
“Did you think I would not find out about it?”
“It was hardly a secret! We did not mean to conceal it from you. Emily told me of the repairs that were quite urgently needed, and I made her a loan.”
“A loan? However did you expect my sister to ever pay you back such a sum!”
“It was not a large sum!” Georgina cried, confused. “It was not so much as a ball gown.”
“I suppose it was not much, to a famous artist. A wealthy widow.” His fists clenched at his sides. “But the Kentons have no need of charity.”
“I did not think of it as charity,” Georgina said softly. She had thought it a gift to her future sister, an investment in her future home.
Obviously, Alex did not see it that way. In fact, it was obvious that he had never thought of Fair Oak as her home at all.
Not as she had dared to.
She looked away from him, to the surrounding trees and shrubberies, which were blurry from the tears swimming in her eyes. She blinked hard against them, determined not to let them fall.
“Please, Alex,” she pleaded, “do not be angry . . .”
Alex had stepped back, into the shadows once more. “I am not angry,” he said, his voice still a bit distant, but not so inflexible. “I merely wanted things to be made clear. I will pay the money back.”
Georgina shook her head. “You do not need to do that.”
“I do need to. You may expect the first installment within a fortnight. And now, Mrs. Beaumont, I will bid you good night. I wish you every health and happiness.”
Then he seemed to melt back into the darkness, and he was gone.
Georgina, when she was certain she was alone, sank down onto the path in the puddle of her skirts. Her crook, which she had been clutching like a lifeline, clattered down beside her.
She felt numb, frozen, shocked, as if she had been left out in a blizzard.
What had just happened? She was utterly bewildered. That man, who had spoken to her so coldly about money, was not her Alex. He was not the man who had talked with her of her work with such interest and sensitivity, who had danced with her, walked with her. Kissed her so sweetly.
That Alex had been full of passion, of kindness and dignity.
This Alex she had seen tonight seemed rather a scared little boy, running from a woman’s gift. A woman’s love. Hiding behind cold words. Words about money.
Georgina clutched at the pearls she wore at her throat, longing to tear them off and throw them at Alex’s stubborn head. Didn’t he know how fortunate he was to have her? Didn’t he know what he was missing?
Georgina pressed her hand to her mouth to still her sobs. How she longed to run after him, to find him, to make him tell her what was truly wrong! She knew that her Alex had loved her, that something terrible was keeping him from that love now.
Yet how could she talk to him now, when she was so frozen with hurt? She could not. She would not! She just longed to bash him over the head with her crook, for his bacon-brained behavior!
Georgina took off her frilled bonnet and shook her hair free with a sigh. Love had always been so simple for her. Jack had been as open and sunny as a summer day. He had been easy to understand, since all his emotions could
always be read on his handsome face. Their quarrels had always been quick and brief, ended with a sweet romp in the bedchamber.
Paolo, a man she had had a brief flirtation with in Venice, had had flashes of temper that ended as swiftly as a lightning bolt. She had always known what he was thinking, as well, because he always told it to the world. She would just laugh at his tantrums, as he would laugh at hers.
Why must love be difficult now, when it was so very important! More important than it had ever been before in her life.
Georgina beat her fists against her knees in frustration.
“Mrs. Beaumont?”
She looked up. Freddie stood beside her; he must have come upon her unseen, while she was wrapped in her misery.
“Are you ill?” he said, his face creased in concern.
“No,” she answered, then changed her mind quickly. “Yes. I do feel a bit faint.”
And indeed she did. She knew that if she were to stand up, her legs would not support her.
“Do let me help you,” Freddie offered, flustered.
Georgina leaned heavily on his arm as he brought her to her feet. “Lady Elizabeth was quite worried when you could not be found.”
“Elizabeth!” Georgina cried. “Is she ill? Does she need me?”
“She is well. She was just concerned for you. Here, lean on my arm, and I will see you back to the box.”
“Thank you, Mr. Marlow,” Georgina said, deeply grateful for his kindness, and for the solid feel of his arm holding her up. “You are a true gentleman.”
Freddie blushed a deep crimson.
Elizabeth was pacing the length of the box when they arrived. “Georgie! There you are. Harriet Lonsdale said she had not seen you all evening, and I feared you had become ill.” Her quick gaze took in Georgina’s pale face, her trembling hands. “Oh, my dear, you are ill! We will go home at once.”
“Yes,” Georgina murmured. “Home. I do want to go home.”
Later, curled up before the fire in their dressing gowns, Georgina told Elizabeth all of what had happened in that dark walkway.
“I was such a fool, Lizzie. An utter fool.” Georgina buried her face in a cushion, trying to hide her tear-swollen face.
Nothing could be hidden from her friend. Elizabeth laid her hand gently on Georgina’s trembling shoulder. “You, dear? A fool? Never!”
“Yes! A fool to ever think Alex and I could make a life together, that I could be in love again. That I could make a proper duchess.”
Elizabeth’s hand stilled. “Was his family horrid to you, and you did not tell me the truth? Georgie, you do not need such rudesbys in your life. You are far too fine for them . . .”
Georgina shook her head. “His mother and sister were delightful. Unlike their son and brother.”
“What happened, then? I fear I do not understand. Did you and Alex quarrel?”
“Yes,” Georgina wailed.
“About what? You were so very happy when you left for the country. Lord Wayland adores you, I could see that!”
“I adored him. And I confess that I thought he—admired me.”
“So did I, most assuredly. So did Nick. Were we so deeply mistaken, then?”
Georgina sat up, and accepted the handkerchief that Elizabeth held out to her. “I fear so. I saw him tonight, you see. He came all the way to Vauxhall just to break things off with me.”
“Well!” Elizabeth huffed. “We shall sue him for breach of promise.”
“Lizzie!”
“We shall. I will summon the solicitor straight away.”
“Oh, Lizzie, we cannot do that. There was never any promise to breach. He never asked me to marry him.”
“He was going to! We all knew that. Did he not take you to meet his family? A man would not do that with a woman he wanted only for a mistress.”
“Perhaps he was going to make an offer. But he did not. He will not.”
“Well. Nick shall just have to call him out, then.”
“Lizzie!” Georgina laughed. “No.”
“We could draw some unflattering pictures of him, and sell them to the print shops.”
“I like that.”
“I thought you might. Now, will you tell me exactly what happened?”
“You know, of course, that Alex’s late brother quite ruined the family’s fortunes.”
“I had suspected such a thing, yes. But Wayland seemed so very guileless ...” Elizabeth’s lips thinned. “Never say he was a fortune hunter. Oh, my dear Georgie.”
Georgina laughed bitterly. “He was quite the opposite, I fear.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was called away on business while I was at Fair Oak, as I told you, and I was going to stay with his family until he returned. His sister was going out to visit some tenants, so I accompanied her. Oh, Lizzie, you should have heard of the life she has been forced to live! She has been running the farm almost all on her own. I loaned her some funds, just to see her through some very necessary repairs.”
“You gave money to Wayland’s sister?”
“Loaned. Just until—well, until Alex and I were wed, and the farm could be made profitable again.”
“I see. Yes. And Wayland was angry?”
Georgina gave an unladylike snort. “To say the least! He was furious when he found out. He—he accused me of trying to buy his family. I think he fears it will make him appear weak in front of them.”
“What nonsense!” Elizabeth cried.
“Yes. I was only trying to be of some help.”
“Of course you were. What did you say to him?”
“Nothing. But I wanted to tell him he was being a ridiculous, bacon-brained looby. Among other things. It just all happened so fast that I did not have the opportunity. More is the pity.”
Elizabeth giggled. “Georgie!”
“He was not the man I imagined him to be.”
“So it is well and truly over?”
“Yes.”
“Deep in your heart?”
“Yes!”
“Well, then. What are you going to do now, dear?”
Georgina gave Elizabeth a rather watery smile. “I am going home. To Italy.”
Chapter Twenty
Alex was deeply sorry as soon as he opened his eyes the morning after Vauxhall.
And he was not sorry only because he had consumed too much cheap brandy and now his head felt like it was being hammered at from the inside.
He was sorry because he remembered every last horrible thing he had said to Georgina.
Georgina. The woman he loved.
And look at how he had shown her that love! With harsh words, with anger over things as foolish as money and hurt pride.
Well, he had learned more in the never-ending night after he left her at Vauxhall, in the cheap taverns where he had set about becoming thoroughly foxed, than he had in a hundred schoolrooms or a thousand battlefields.
As he had sat in a dark corner with his bottle of brandy, he remembered all the things Georgina had done or said since the day he fished Lady Kate out of the river. He remembered how her green eyes had shone with quiet pride as she showed him her paintings. He remembered how she danced, so light and quick, her waist warm under his hand. He remembered how she would laugh with his sister while they played cards, when Emily had not laughed in so long.
He remembered best of all how very sweet her lips tasted.
He remembered her white, hurt face under the lanterns at Vauxhall.
And he had known, as he stumbled back to his rooms at dawn, that he was a hundred times a fool.
Georgina Beaumont was a talented, beautiful, dashing woman, who every man in London admired. Yet she had loved him! Alex Kenton, the crusty colonel. Not the duke. Him. What were pride and money, next to a woman like her? Next to a love like they could share?
Nothing. They were as nothing. Yet he only saw that now, when it was too late. After he had gone charging in like some hell-bent bull, bashing all the beautiful things
they had together. He had crushed love, trust, and honor beneath his quick anger.
Alex groaned and buried his face in his pillow. Even that, along with the demons dancing in his skull, could not erase his misery.
He should never have gone to her when he was so exhausted from his journey, and so angry. He should have waited until he could see her again in daylight, clearheaded and rational, when he could speak to her in a calm manner.
Seeing her in the moonlight, so beautiful and radiant, had killed every vestige of a rational thought. And, he was ashamed to admit, the sight of the rich pearls at her neck had only fueled his anger.
Well, his troops had not called him Hotspur for nothing.
Now he saw so clearly what he should have done. He should have taken her in his arms, ridiculous shepherd’s crook and all, and held her so tightly she could never leave.
If she would only listen to him now, give him a chance to redeem himself, he would not care if she wrapped herself from top to toe in pearls! Or if she even papered his house in diamonds.
He did not even care if people speculated that he was a fortune hunter. He only wanted her to accept his love, and give him a chance to win her back.
He knew it would not be easy. Georgina would no doubt blister him with her redheaded temper, challenge him to a duel, run him over with her curricle. He did not care; she could do her worst, for he deserved every bit of it. And more.
But he had to try to get her to forgive him. He had to. His very life depended on it.
Slowly, very slowly, Alex rolled out of bed and went to pour some cold water into a basin. He judged from the quality of the light at the window that it was already late afternoon, and he had a very important call to make.
“She is not here, Lord Wayland.” Elizabeth Hollingsworth’s gaze was cool as she looked at Alex, where he sat across from her in her drawing room.
If Alex needed any reminders of how far and how fast he had fallen from grace, this coolness, after Elizabeth’s warm friendship, would have done it neatly. However, he did not need any reminders. He needed to see Georgina as quickly as possible, to begin to repair the damage he had so heedlessly done.
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